Abstract

The synthesis of fluorinated diamond-like carbon (F-DLC) films was investigated for the first time using the plasma immersion ion processing technique. A pulsed glow dischargeplasma was generated at a pressure of 1 Pa from acetylene and hexafluoroethane gas mixtures and the films were deposited on silicon 〈100〉 substrates by applying a pulsed bias to the substrate holder. The filmhardness, wear resistance and nonwetting properties were found to be strongly dependent on the fluorine content incorporated into the coatings. With an optimum gas ratio, the deposited F-DLC films were found to have nonwetting properties similar to Teflon®, but were 10 times harder (8 GPa).